Everyone's Opinion Newsletter

The primary election is over and voter turnout in Blair County was 15%, the lowest poll workers have seen in years as reported in a May 20th, 2009 Altoona Mirror article entitled: Voter turnout lower than usual across region. This article also quoted Republican clerk Donna Shultz, who evidently was upset by the dismal turnout and who chastised the voters that did not vote with a warning that, those stay-at-homes will have no justification for complaining if the winners of these school board elections decide to raise taxes on those who did not vote.

As per the same Mirror article a similar attitude was echoed from Clearfield County’s Elections Director, Linda Clark, who said, “If you’re not going to speak your voice, shame on you.” While these remarks indicate that both women were up-set, their remarks also indicate a flippant attitude that is naïve or arrogant, and that somehow the 80% to 85% of citizens who didn’t vote were guilty of doing something wrong. Let’s consider what’s really wrong.

Consider: School board candidates are allowed to run for a two year term and a four year term, in essence they are running for two elected positions.

Consider: The winner of a four year term and two year term is allowed to choose which term they wish to hold and then the school board at their discretion after the elections are over, fills the other vacant position, which takes the decision out of the voters’ hands. This same scenario occurred in a past Logan township supervisor’s race.

Consider: Third party voters are barred from participating in primary elections while on the other hand school board candidates are permitted to cross-file with the two major parties. This hypocritical travesty is an exercise in political cross-dressing that is definitely strange.

Consider: Our state representatives are limited to a two year term, these school board members should also be limited to a two year term and maybe it would be better to reduce their terms to one year given their propensity to thumb their noses at the electorates’ will and do great damage with their unconscionable spending habits to the detriment of our property taxes; or,

Consider: Since these school board elections are used more as an electoral sham to endorse the administrative law which governs these school districts rather than the representative will of the people than maybe it wouldbe better to eliminate this electoral travesty completely and replace their function with another layer of bureaucracy.

Consider: The Mirror published interviews with candidates for the township supervisors’ races but conveniently neglected any interviews with candidates running for the school board races. Why? Could this be one of those don’t ask, don’t tell situations so that a candidate’s position on reassessment could not be asked or committed to a printed public format? Due to the scarcity of information, how could any voter in clear conscience cast an informed vote unless they were privy to the parties’ inter-circle cabal?

Consider: Due to the fact these devious electoral tactics havebeen legally enshrined in administrative election law, one would have to ask themselves, is the real cabal within the bar associations?

A little over three years ago our family lost a dear four-legged friend, the family dog. When she first arrived she was about eight weeks old and of course one of the first orders of business was to train her where to do her business. Those that have had dogs know the routine, first we started with a newspaper inside then graduated to timely intervals outdoors. When mishaps occurred different forms of coercion were applied, the ultimate being the threat of or a swat across the butt with a folded newspaper, the Altoona Mirror of course.

She learned quickly but occasionally mishaps occurred. On these occasions, my wife who was the major disciplinarian would scold with the Altoona Mirror in hand than say “What did you do!”  The dog would acknowledge the wrong by lowering her head and cower off to her bed and patiently wait for a sign of forgiveness.

As she matured to the late stages of puppy life her mischief focused on different things, from dragging pillows off the couch to dragging throw rugs in a tug of war when nobody was around. The most humorous and the messiest antic was when she got hold of the end of a full roll of toilet paper and dragged it thru the house tearing it to shreds in the process. For all ofthese infractions the routine phrase was, what did you do? It seemed that chastisement by this phrase was more threatening than any ten swats from the Altoona Mirror.

Our kids came to recognize how incriminated she would react to this phrase and used it to torment, sometimes to the point of being cruel. One evening we were at the kitchen table eating supper and the dog was waiting for her portion. After waiting for what she thought was a reasonable amount oftime, she became impatient and began to pester one of our sons for recognition and her portion. Becoming a little aggravated with her pestering he evoked that terrible phrase, what did you do, in order to incriminate and intimidate her. She instinctively began to cower and sulk then got a bewildered look for a moment, then reared up in protest with a staunch grow and loud bark so as to say, I didn’t do anything wrong! The phrase no longer had any meaning except when justly used.

It seems man’s best four legged friend has been blessed with acertain amount of common sense also. And for these people to criticize and for the Mirror to repeat these hollow incriminations toward 80% to 85% of the electorate that did not vote is to consider us dumber than our dogs. At these kinds of percentages, this is a vote of no confidence; a super majority has shunned the process. By right and fair play this election should be called null and void, and rescheduled.

Granted this is an off year primary election but if these kinds of percentages carry through to the general election along with these devious tactics in place, this State Government will no longer be able to lead by crisis but will be governed by a crisis. We the people are tired of being treated like dogs, we deserve better too. It appears the people have spoken and “it’s not shame on us, but shame on you” for allowing this situation to get to this point. It’s long past time for real reform. 

The Freeman

BlairCounty

Your Opinion

I am running for Altoona City Council to hopefully change the way things are run in this area. We have $170,000 dollars going to the Mishler theater from our wonderful U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster and we have a Tour de Toona race that has been going on for ten years.

But I do not see any government official wonder or working towards our future. We the people, not we the elected officials, run this country and we have to act that way. I thought when our current president won, it would spark a lot of people in believing that if we came together and work together we could do a lot. That is why Obama won, because PEOPLE were tired of the same old stuff, and this AREA is way over due in not having good paying jobs.

My grandfather left this area back in the 50’s because the railroad would not let GM or Ford come here and not a lot has changed since then, other than the good old railroad is slowly shutting down now. Wake up people. Ebensburg has a factory that builds windmills and the employees make a lot of money, but people in Blair County have shopping Centers. That’s what we settle on, so that is what we have. We need to work together and improve this area.

Jim Preusser

Altoona, PA

City Council Candidate

Your Opinion

I would be more impressed if Mr. Eichelberger had a plan to preserve and uphold the Pennsylvania Constitution and hold public servants accountable for the crime and corruption taking place in the state and local level. A good starting point would be the Blair County Courthouse. Instead he wishes to start at the bottom by holding the citizens accountable for their actions.

Robert

Hollidaysburg, PA

Your Opinion

Dear Mr. Garber,

With all due respect, I understand the blight problem and I see what you are doing and that it is all for the right reasons. However, the blight that this city has brought down upon its people was opening its doors to Mr. Troxel and the halfway houses. I’m sorry, but all the money in the world (given from outside sources) will never return my city to what it once was. Our city fathers have sold our soul to the devil (i.e. Jersey, Philly, and let’s not forget Baltimore) by giving our city to a brand new drug problem, calling it the Halfway Program. We had a great place to raise kids at one time, but that’s gone now.

When you’re really ready to take the gloves off, clean up this town, and quit hiding from the root of the problem, let Jeff know. He can give you my phone number and my friends and I will go to work.

Thank you, and thank you for listening.

Marty

Altoona, PA

Tell Your Opinion

There is usually someone advocating that we expand taxpayer funding “early education” programs, along with some dubious reference to studies that show this will somehow benefit the child.

Can we please keep in mind, this is promoting expansion of the same government-funded programs that have been failing our children miserably for decades?

Does anyone really believe that kids are not graduating high school and a large percentage of graduates are functionally illiterate because they did not attend school when they were 3 and 4 years of age? Could they not learn to read and write during the next 12 years of government schooling?

The research shows that the benefits of Head Start programs are non-existent after the first few years of school There is no evidence these children perform better than they otherwise would have later in their academic careers.

The expansion of these programs fulfills two main objectives that have nothing to do with education: They allow both parents to work full time and not have to pay for daycare, a situation becoming ever more necessary as the government confiscates more of our income through taxation and inflationary monetary policy. And they allow the teachers unions with their ideological agenda to begin influencing the thinking of children at younger ages, exactly what is needed in a submissive society that will accept whatever misguided and destructive policies government throws its way.

Lois

Blair Township, PA

Tell Your Opinion!

Ok, boys and girls. I’ve been quiet for a while now. Done! I went to the city today for my business license to reopen and existing business. Let me tell you how that went.

They sent me to the “Planning Commission” (this is a group of overpaid people that decide how your property should look). It really doesn’t matter what kind of work you do, just if your place is pretty. Well, anyone that knows me knows I’m not pretty, but I get the job done. Last time I checked you didn’t need “flower boxes” to change oil or replace breaks. Maybe I should buy new shoes. The old ones work well, but they’re not pretty.

Last time I looked, the crack house down the street needed the bushes trimmed, but that’s ok. It’s the trickledown effect. The crack house creates addicts, which in turn creates rehabs and halfway houses. There’s a great tax base.

Then let’s not forget that we really need more retail business. No one has money to buy things, and a lot of them are empty, but that’s ok because they look pretty.

Now I know why everyone told me not to open anything in this city! If it’s not retail or drug related industry, our city council doesn’t want it. If you want a pretty place to do your service go to the dealer, their place is very pretty.

But you also need to know that their labor rate is three times what mine is. Who do you think pays for “pretty?” Tell me again, why is this city in trouble? Oh, that’s right...

Marty

Altoona, PA

Tell Your Opinion

RHJ Medical, Inc., is a rehab company for heroin addicts that wants a federal judge to overturn the will of the people in Dubois so they can open their clinic there (500 feet away from a public park.) We have heard the tune to this song before, have we not?

It is an unfortunate reality of our times that we do need these rehabilitation clinics, and we need a lot of them. But understandably, no one wants them in his back yard. It seems like an irreconcilable problem, but it is not.

In order to understand almost any societal problem, you have to follow the money. There is big money to be made in these rehabilitation facilities.

However, why do we need separate physical facilities to provide these necessary treatments? One problem is that this business is highly regulated, which makes it difficult for other healthcare providers to enter the business.

One solution is to deregulate the industry to provide more competition, and therefore less expensive treatment options, so that perhaps the taxpayer is not footing 100% of the bill all the time. As regulations increase, so does the cost. Reducing these regulations makes it easier for new players to enter the market, thereby reducing prices through competition. (Remember competition? That’s something we had before socialism.)

Another solution is to allow other healthcare providers to provide rehabilitation services. (Notice I did not say force them to provide services.) Another would be for hospitals to rent or lease space in their facilities for these services to be rendered.

You have heard of Home Nursing care? What about Home Rehab care?

Free markets have ways of solving problems that you and I cannot even imagine in our ivory tower think tanks. Deregulate the delivery of services, and the market will provide the answers.

Lois Kaneshiki

Blair Township, PA

Tell your opinion